All of us should take a short break from the fireworks and festivities of the Independence Day holiday to do one important thing: read the Declaration of Independence.

Many of us haven't given the document a glance since high school civics class. Some may never have read the words signed 234 years ago. We know the names of the men who signed the document - Jefferson, Franklin and Hancock - but some have never read their words. Now's the time.

It's almost fair time. That means it's time to see what some of the best, brightest and hardest working youth in the community have been doing. Hundreds of youth from across Perry County and surrounding areas will be exhibiting projects. It's a great experience to see what they have learned.

Fair is a time to show just a portion of what 4-H members do but we know that 4-H is much more then the fair. What is 4-H?

That's when most of the new laws passed earlier this year by the Indiana General Assembly take effect.

In this report, I want to highlight some of the measures that just became law.

When we debated ways to create more jobs for Hoosiers, one emphasis was assistance for Indiana's small businesses, which already employ 1.3 million people in our state. One way to help will come from the position of small business ombudsman, which became part of the Indiana Economic Development Corp. July 1.

Many Perry and Spencer Countians are among the 1,500 Local 104 United Steelworkers members who work at Alcoa's Warrick County plant, so the union's vote Thursday to accept a new four-year contract with the company was good news for our local economy.

A few weeks ago I stumbled across an article about one organization's efforts to assist in the Gulf oil spill cleanup.

The organization, Matter of Trust, is an ecological public charity that was asking for the public's help in collecting human and animal hair (dog, cat, alpaca, sheep) along with nylons to make oil booms.

Feeling helpless here in southern Indiana, I thought it would be a good way for our community to get involved with their cause.

Editor's Note: A Quality of Life Committee working under the auspices of the Perry County Development Corp. is partnering with The News to present stories of people who have moved to Perry County or who have returned here after several years away. Nancy Myers penned this month's view.

I moved to Perry County almost nine years ago to work for the Hoosier National Forest in Tell City. I came from a national forest in Arizona near Phoenix that was very busy.

Last Monday was the longest day of the year, meaning the summer solstice had arrived and the sun was as high in the sky as it could go. I spent Monday slaving behind my desk but I did my best the previous Saturday and Sunday to take advantage of just about every minute of daylight. Come nightfall Sunday, my bones ached but I felt a bit of satisfaction.

One of the wonderful results of publishing your e-mail address on a Web site, as we at The News do, is that people anywhere in the world can find it and send us stuff. I get all kinds of news releases from people I've never met, promoting products, services, events and ideas I could never dream up by myself.

For example, I had heard of Take Your Daughter to Work Day, and just like you, had kept quiet about its inherent constitutional issues. But I wasn't aware until Monday that someone had come up with Take Your Dog To Work Day, which happens Friday.

Will Koch made headlines in 2006 with the Voyage, a wooden roller coaster that not only has been ranked the best ride of its type in the world, but helped grow Holiday World & Splashin' Safari. The ride's name can be applied to Koch, who died suddenly June 13. Though his voyage through life ended long before it should have, all those who knew Will know he made dreams come true, his own and those of countless others.

Many of you saw the comments made by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels recently when he said the next president "would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues" so he or she could focus on the fiscal problems facing the country.

As I've made clear, I really like Gov. Daniels, and I consider him a friend and colleague, but his comments mirror those of the GOP establishment who view values voters dismissively as "single-minded."

The United States economy is in dire trouble. With an ever-devaluing currency, an enormous trade deficit and virtually no growth in production, we are teetering on the brink of the greatest depression ever.

We are well on our way - according to Bloomberg News, jobless claims rose by 12,000 to an all-time high of 472,000 June 12. Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities said, "If you really are going to have a sustainable recovery, you need the labor market to improve."

The original "A-Team" TV show was a bit before my time, so I only know of the group of renegade commandos from the occasional rerun, but more so from the parodies of the show (an episode of "Family Guy" comes to mind).

I'm pretty sure I'm the key demographic for this film, then, because the film gets so ridiculous at times that you might think it actually is making fun of the old show. This is not a bad thing. It just means that "The A-Team" is aware of what it should be: a crazy, fun action movie.

In Thursday's B section, we published a picture of a few 4-H Shamrock members spending the morning cleaning the Windy Creek Perry County Greenway on the north side of Tell City. Youth from Deer Creek Baptist Church recently cleaned Sunset Park in Tell City, helping prepare that area for last Monday's groundbreaking for a new riverwalk project.

Those who opposed the health-care bill are currently debating whether "repeal and replace" should be the clarion call in the coming election.

Regardless of how this debate turns out, those in favor of doing better should focus their immediate attention on identifying and fixing the most harmful parts of the legislation. The new Independent Payment Advisory Board should be a top target.

"Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time," the latest video-game adaptation, is not likely to change anyone's mind regarding the video-game-as-movie genre. I actually enjoy a few of the hated video-game adaptations, but this film was just a bland experience. It's not terrible, but it's certainly not consistently entertaining.

If you're a voter, you'll be asked in November if you want to help change the Indiana Constitution.

Property-tax caps that have been the subject of numerous news stories, several here and many elsewhere, survived the first of the steps, in 2008 and this year, required to get them into the state's most important document.

I didn't recognize the guy in the pickup truck and while he didn't seem to pay much attention to the activities under way in City Hall Park May 30, his innocent drive-by on the Sunday before Memorial Day helped me. He left me with a new understanding of just how lucky we are to live in a nation where we can do pretty much what we want.